PL3104 Lecture 5 notes PDF

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PL3104 Lecture 5 notes: Cognitive development in early childhood Piaget’s theory   

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Time: 2-7 years of age Operations  reversible mental actions that allow them to do mentally what they formerly did physically First substage: symbolic function substage o Occurs roughly between ages 2 and 4 o Child gains the ability to mentally represent an object that is not present Second substage: intuitive thought substage o Occurs at about 4 to 7 years of age o Child uses primitive reasoning and seeks answers to all sorts of questions o Children are unaware of how they know what they know o Preoperational thought is the beginning of the ability to reconstruct in thought what has been established in behaviour  operations Achievements o Mental representation  symbolic representation o Intuitive thought Manifestation of achievements o Engage in pretend play  Objects and people are something other than themselves o Begin to use language  Words stand for things o Manifestation of mental representation  Use drawing to represent the world

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Delayed imitation  See something now and act it out much later  Eg.: watch cartoon and act out later Anticipation in problem solving  Anticipates future problems and tires to avoid them

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Cognitive limitations o Rigid inflexible thinking  No “operations”  Not organised into a reversible system o Animism  Child has the belief that inanimate objects have lifelike qualities and are capable of action  Eg.: The sun is angry, it’s going away o Egocentrism  The inability to distinguish one’s own perspectives from those of other  Visual egocentrism  Three-mountain task  What does the doll see?  Pre-op: attributes own perspective to doll  Verbal egocentrism  S: Uncle David, it got on your car and scratched it.  D: What did?  S: Come, I’ll show you. (takes him outside and shows him a scratch on his new car)  D: Sandy, what made the scratch?  S: Not me!  D: (laughing) I know, Sandy, but how did the scratch get there?  S: It got on the car and scratched it with his claws.  D: What did?  S: (Looking around) There! (points to cat across street)  D: A cat! Why didn’t you tell me that in the first place?  S: I did!!! o Centration: focusing of attention on one characteristic to the exclusion of all others  Cannot focus on two/more aspects of a display simultaneously o Lack conservation  Conservation  awareness that alters the appearance of an object or substance does not change its basic properties (eg.: quantity) o Perceptual bound

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Cannot think of appearance and reality of object simultaneously Focus on appearnace  Eg.: egg behind blue filter o “Looks?”  blue, “Really is?”  blue Focus on reality (interllectual realism)  Eg.: Rock sponge o “Is?”  sponge, “Looks?”  sponge

Vygotsky’s Theory  Children develop their ways of thinking and understanding primarily through social interaction o Cognitive development depends on the tools provided o Children’s minds are shaped by the cultural context o Language also has a role in cognitive development  All mental functions have external, or social, origins  Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) o Refers to the range of tasks that are too difficult for children alone but can be achieved with guidance and assistance o Lower limit of ZPD: what the child achieves independently o Upper limit of ZPD: what can be achieved with the assistance of an able instructor o Child’s cognitive skills are in the process of maturing

 Scaffolding o Changing the level of support over the course of the teaching session to fit the child’s current performance level  Language and thought o Children use speech for social communication, problem solving o Private speech: the use of language for self-regulation  To plan monitor and guide behaviour o Inner speech: internalised self-talk  Transition from external to inner speech o Language and thought initially develop independently of each other and then merge

Information-Processing Approach  Theory of Mind o Awareness of the mental processes of the self and others o Understand others can have desires, beliefs, goals, perceptions that are different from one’s own o Understand that other’s behaviour is influenced by their mental contents o Can help:  Interpret other’s behaviour  Predict other’s behaviour  Guide own behaviour  Relate to others o Assessing theory of mind  Experiment: Experimenter knew in advance whether child preferred crackers (most) or broccoli (some!) Experimenter expressed opposite desire. Child asked to ‘give me one’. 14-month-olds chose according to their own desire; 18-month-olds chose according to experimenter’s desire  Emergence of understanding that desire is subjective  Beliefs are representations that can be true or false  True beliefs  False beliefs  Most sophisticated, “strict ToM”  A lot of emphasis on the understanding of beliefs

 Before age 4 children do not understand false beliefs

 Sally-Anne task

 Before 4 years the child will say Sally will look in the box o Ages at which children reach certain milestones in their theory of mind may vary, depending on  Method  Individual differences o Factors that influence development of a ToM  Young children’s symbolic skills contribute to the development of a theory of mind  Language development also plays a prominent role  Advance in prefrontal cortex functioning  Engaging in make-believe play  Engaging in mental state talk through social interaction  Autism  Shown to display deficits in theory of mind

 Attention o Visual attention dramatically increases during preschool years o Executive attention: involving planning actions, allocating attention to goals, detecting and compensating for errors, and dealing with novel or difficult circumstances o Sustained attention: focused and extended engagement with an object, task, event, or other aspect of the environment o More likely to pay attention to salient versus relevant dimensions o Accuracy of children’s long term memories usually increases with age  Short-term memory: retained up to 30s  Long-term memory: unlimited o Memory improves with appropriate cues and prompts o During preschool, children’s autobiographical memory – of significant events and experiences – also increases  Executive function o Umbrella-like concept of a number of higher-level cognitive processes linked to the development of the brain’s prefrontal cortex o In early childhood, it involves advances in cognitive inhibition, cognitive flexibility, goal setting and delay of gratification o Advances in executive function are linked with math skills, language development, and school readiness o Development is affected by parenting practices, socioeconomic status, some aspects of language, imagination, cultural background, and sleep quality...